I stuck to these principles in making my verbal report to Elgin that afternoon – and for once they were almost completely wasted. This was because the first words I’d uttered, after gulping Grant’s tea, were to tell him that there was a vermilion death sentence on Parkes and the other prisoners; this caused such a sensation that, once I’d told all I knew about it (which wasn’t much; I didn’t know even where they were confined) I was forgotten in the uproar of activity, with diplomatic threats being sent into Pekin, and Probyn ordered to stand by with a flying squadron. And when I sat down with Elgin later, and gave him my word-of-mouth, it was plain that the fate of our people was the only thing on his mind, reasonably enough; my account of the secret intrigues of the Imperial court (which I thought a pretty fair coup) interested him hardly at all.
It cramped my style, which, as I’ve indicated, tends to be bluff and laconic, making little of such hardships as binding, caging, and starvation. “Oh, they knocked me about a bit, you know,” is my line, but he wasn’t having it. He wanted every detail of my treatment, and damn the politics; so he got it, including a fictitious account of how they’d hammered me senseless before dragging me, gasping defiance, to audience with the Emperor, so that I didn’t remember much about it (that seemed the best way out of that embarrassing episode). I needn’t have fretted; Elgin was still grinding his teeth over Sang’s threatening me with death by the thousand cuts, and clenching his fist at the butchery of Nolan.
My account of captivity in the Summer Palace, which I’d planned as my pièce de résistance, fell flat as your hat. I gave him the plain, unvarnished truth, too – omitting only the trifling detail that the Emperor’s favourite concubine had been grinding me breathless every night. I believe in discretion and delicacy, you see – for one thing, you never know who’ll run tattling to Elspeth. Anyway, I’d have thought my story sufficiently sensational as it was.
He received it almost impatiently, prime political stuff and all. I now realise that, even if he hadn’t had the prisoners obsessing him, he still wouldn’t have been much interested in all the tattle I’d eavesdropped between Yehonala and Little An – he was there to ratify a treaty and show the Chinese that we meant business; the last thing he wanted was entanglement in Manchoo politics, with himself acting as king-maker, or anything of that sort. He brightened briefly at my description of the set-to with Sang and his braves (which I kept modestly brief, knowing that my blood-stained sabre had already spoken more eloquently than I could), but when I’d done his first question was:
“Excepting Prince Sang’s murderous attack, was no violence offered to you at the Summer Palace? None at all? No rigorous confinement or ill-usage?”
“Hardly, my lord,” says I, and just for devilment I added: “The Yi Concubine’s ladies did throw apples at me, on one occasion.”
“Good God!” cries he. “Apples?” He stared at me. “In play, you mean?”
“I believe it was in a spirit of mischief, my lord. They were quite small apples.”
“Small apples? I’ll be damned,” he muttered, and thought hard for a moment, frowning at the scenery and then at me.
“Did you obtain any inkling of the … purpose for which you were … kept at the house of this … Yi Concubine, did you say?”
“I gathered she had never seen a barbarian before,” says I gravely. “She seemed to regard me as a curiosity.”
“Damned impertinence!” says he, but I noticed his pate had gone slightly pink. “What sort of a woman is she? In her person, I mean.”
I reflected judiciously. “Ravishing is the word that best describes her, my lord. Quite ravishing … in the oriental style.”
“Oh! I see.” He digested this. “And her character? Strong? Retiring? Amiable, perhaps? I take it she’s an educated woman?”
“Not amiable, precisely.” I shook my head. “Strong-willed, certainly. Exacting, purposeful … immensely energetic. I should say she was extremely well-educated, my lord.”
At this point he noticed that his young secretary, who’d been recording my report, was agog with hopeful interest, so he concluded rather abruptly by saying I’d done extremely well, congratulated me on my safe return, told the secretary to make a fair copy for me to sign, and dismissed me, shooting me a last perplexed look; that business about being pelted with apples by harem beauties had unsettled him, I could see. He wasn’t alone, either; outside I found the young pen-pusher blinking at me enviously, obviously wishing that he, too, could be regarded as a curiosity by ravishing orientals.
“I say!” says he. “The Summer Palace must be a jolly place!”
“Damned jolly,” says I. “Did you get it all down?”
“I say! Oh, yes, every word! It was frightfully interesting, you know – not at all like most reports.” He peered at his notes through steamy spectacles. “Ah, yes … what’s a concubine?”
“Harlequin’s lady-love in the pantomime … no, don’t put that down, you young juggins! A concubine is a Chinese nobleman’s personal whore.”
“I say! How d’you spell it?”
I told him – and what he told others in his turn I don’t care to think, but just to show you how rumours run and reputations are made, Desborough of the Artillery swore to me later that he’d heard one of his gunners telling his chum that there was no daht abaht it, Flash ’Arry ’ad got isself took prisoner a-purpose, see, ’cos ’e was beloved by this yeller bint, the Empress o’China, an’ ’im an’ Sam Collinson, wot was jealous, ’ad fought a bloody duel over ’er, an’ Flash ’Arry touched the barstid in five places, strite up, an’ then cut ‘is bleedin’ ’ead orf, see?
Strange how close fiction can come to truth, ain’t it? The oddest thing of all was that the part of the yarn which did gain some acceptance, among quite sensible people, too, was that I’d deliberately allowed myself to be captured, as a clever way of getting into the enemy’s head-quarters. Folk’ll believe anything, especially if they’ve invented it themselves. Anyway, you can see why I don’t count my report to Elgin entirely wasted.
Later that day he and Grant and our senior commanders went to the Ewen-ming-ewen, officially to view the splendours, but in fact to make sure that the Frogs didn’t pick it clean before our army got its share. I was on hand, and absolutely heard Montauban protesting volubly that no looting whatever had taken place – this with his rascals still streaming out of the Hall of Audience with everything but the floor-tiles, and the piles of spoil filling the great courtyard. Some of our early-comers, I noticed, were already among the plunderers; a party of Sikh cavalry were offering magnificent bolts of coloured silk to the later arrivals at two dollars a time, and the Frogs, who’d had the best of it, were doing a fine trade in jade tablets, watches, jewelled masks, furs, ornamental weapons, enamels, toys, and robes, and finding no lack of takers. The yard was like a tremendous gaudy market, for loot from the other buildings near at hand was being brought in as well, and fellows were bargaining away what they couldn’t carry.
Elgin watched in bleak disgust, with Montauban hopping at his elbow crying, ah, but this is merely to make the inventory, is it not, so that all can be divided fairly among the allies; milor’ might rest assured that every item would be accounted for, so that all should benefit.
“What a splendid place it has been,” says Elgin sadly, standing in the entrance to the great golden hall. “And now, desolation.” The floor was covered with broken shards of glass and jade and porcelain, broken cabinetwork and torn hangings, and gangs of Frogs and Chink villagers and our own early birds were swarming everywhere after the last pickings, the vast hollow chamber echoing to their yells of triumph and disappointment, the smashing of furniture and pottery that was too big to carry, the oaths and laughter and quarrelling. “No credit to our vaunted civilisation, gentlemen,” says Elgin, and everyone looked sober, except Montauban, who sulked.
“Can’t stop it,” says Hope Grant, casting a bright professional eye and tugging his whisker. “Soldier’s privilege. Time immemor
ial.” He glanced at me. “Remember Lucknow?”
“It is the waste that offends!” cries Elgin. “I daresay this place contained a million yesterday; how much would it fetch now? Fifty thousand? Bah! Plunder is one thing, but sheer wanton destruction …” He shook his head angrily.
Wolseley, consulting a notebook, said that of course this was only a fraction of the Summer Palace, which was of vast extent, no doubt packed with stuff … Flashman probably knew it best of anybody, at which they all fell silent and looked to me; you never in your life saw so many beady eyes. Just for a second I had a vision of that pretty pavilion by the lake, and Yehonala’s white hand placing a delicate ivory fairy-piece on the game board just so, the silver nails reflected in the polished jade, her ladies’ silken sleeves rustling – and felt a sudden anger and revulsion – but what was the odds, when they’d find it anyway? And why not, after all? We’d won. The irony was that if the Manchoos had kept their word on the treaty to begin with, or even compromised a fortnight ago, we’d never have been near the place.
I said there were hundreds of buildings, palaces and temples and so forth, spread over many miles of parkland; that the Ewen, where we stood, was probably the biggest, since it contained the Imperial apartments, but that the rest was pretty fine, too.
“Good spot o’ boodle, though, what?” says someone; I said I supposed there’d be enough to go round.
At this there was great debate about the need for prize agents who would select prime pieces for each army, the rest going for individual spoil. Grant said he would have all the British share sold and paid out to the troops as prize money on the spot, rather than wait for government adjudication which (although he didn’t say so) would have meant cut shares at the end of the day. Some ass said that was unauthorised; Grant said he didn’t give a dam, he was doing it anyway.
“Who took Pekin?” says he. “Commons committee? No such thing. Our fellows. Very good. Wrath o’ the gods? I’ll stand bail.” He did it, too.
Wolseley, who was a dab artist, was in a fidget to be exercising his pencil, so after the seniors had departed I strolled with him among the buildings, and we watched the looters gutting the place – as Elgin had observed, and I knew from India, they destroyed fifty times what they took away. “See how they enjoy destruction!” says Joe, sketching for dear life while I smoked and studied. “It’s a marvellous thing, the effect of plunder on soldiers. I suppose they feel real power for once in their wretched lives – not the power to kill, they know all about that, it’s just brute force against a body – but the greater power to destroy a creation of the mind, something they know they could never make. Look at that! Just look at ’em, will you?”
He was pointing up at a gallery where a mob of Whitechapel scruff had found huge boxes of the most delicate yellow eggshell porcelain, priceless pieces varying in size from vases four feet high to the tiniest tea-cups, each wrapped carefully in fine tissue. They were throwing ’em down from the balcony in a golden shower, to smash on the floor in explosions of a million glittering fragments so light that they drifted like a snow-mist through the hall. Those below ran laughing among them, scattering them and making them swirl like golden smoke, yelling to the chaps above to throw down more, which they did until the whole place seemed to be filled with it.
“Can’t draw that,” grumbles Joe. “Hang it all, Turner himself couldn’t catch that colour! Odd, ain’t it – that’s quite lovely, too.”
We watched another gang, British, French, and Sikhs, manhandling an enormous vase, twenty feet if it was an inch, all inlaid with dazzling mosaic work, to the top of a flight of steps, poising it with a “One-two-three-and-AWAY!” and hurrahing like mad as it smashed with an explosion like artillery, scattering gleaming shards everywhere. And at the same time there were quiet coves going about methodically examining a jade bowl here and an enamel tablet there, consulting and appraising and dropping ’em in their knapsacks – you know that porcelain statuette on the mantel, or the pretty screen with dragons on it that Aunt Sophie’s so proud of? That’s what they were picking up, while alongside ’em Patsy Hooligan was kicking a door in because he couldn’t be bothered to try the handle, and Pierre Maquereau was grimacing at himself in a Sèvres mirror and taking the butt to his own reflection, and Yussef Beg was carving up an oil painting with his bayonet, and Joe Tomkins was painting a moustache on an ivory Venus, haw-hawing while Jock MacHaggis used it as an Aunt Sally, and the little Chinaman from down the road – oh, don’t forget him – was squealing with glee as he ripped up cloth-of-gold cushions and capered among the feathers.
And through it all went the quiet strollers, like Joe and me, and the tall fair fellow in the Sapper coat whom we found in a room that had once contained hundreds of jewelled timepieces and mechanical toys, and was now ankle-deep in glittering rubble. He had found an item undamaged, and was grinning delightedly over it.
“I really must have this!” cries he. “She will be delighted with it, don’t you think? Such exquisite craftsmanship!” He sighed fondly. “What pleasure to look at a gift for a dear one at home, and think of the joy with which it will be received.”
It was one of the little chiming watches, enamelled and inlaid with diamonds; he held it up for Joe and me to look at, exclaiming at the clear tone of the bell.
“See, mama – it rings!” thinks I to myself – dear God, had that been only yesterday? She would be safe in Jehol now, with her dying Emperor and the little son through whom she hoped to rule China. What would she think, when she came back to her beloved Summer Palace?
We complimented the fair chap on his good taste. I’d never seen him before, but I knew him well later on. He was Chinese Gordon.
The three of us took a turn in the gardens, and watched a group of enthusiasts digging up shrubs and flowers and sticking them in jade vases filched from the rooms. “I can see these taking splendidly in Suffolk!” cries one. “I say, Jim, if only we can keep ’em alive, what a capital rockery we shall have!” Give him the transport, he’d have had the blasted trees up.
Suddenly I stopped short at the sight of a round doorway in the third palace; it was the one, scarred now with shot-holes. We went in, and the ante-room that had been hung with the Son of Heaven’s quilted dragon robes was bare as a cupboard, and not a trace of the musk with which Little An had sprayed me; no wonder, since the soldiery had been pissing on the floor. But here was the little corridor to the Chamber of Divine Repose; the great golden door hung half off it hinges, its precious mouldings stripped away and the handle hacked off. The tortoiseshell plaques of the concubines were scattered about, some of them broken; Gordon turned one over. “What can these be – tokens in some sort of game, d’you suppose?” I said I was fairly sure he was right.
My heart was beating faster as I followed the others into the room; I didn’t really want to see it, but I looked about anyway. The filthy pictures and implements of perversion had gone (trust the French), the mattress of the great bed had been dragged from the alcove and hacked to shreds, its purple silks torn, the gold pillows ripped open. But it was the shattered hole in the dressing-table mirror that made me wince; that was where her lovely reflection had looked out at me, while she painted carefully at her lower lip; that broken stool had supported the wonderful body, with one perfect leg thrust out to the side, the silver toes brushing the carpet. Yet even amid that wreckage, while the others gaped and speculated foolishly about whose room it had been, there was a fierce secret joy about remembering. How the others would have stared if they’d known; Gordon would probably have burst into tears.
I didn’t know which was her tortoiseshell plaque, but I took one anyway, slipping it into my pocket with the jewellery and gold I’d picked up on our walk – though none of it compared with the black jade chessmen I collared in the Birthday Garden a couple of days later; no one else would even look at ’em, which showed judgment, since the experts will tell you that black jade doesn’t exist. I don’t mind; all I know is that while Lucknow paid
for Gandamack Lodge, those chessmen bought me the place on Berkeley Square. But I still have the tortoiseshell plaque; Elspeth stands her bedside teapot on it.42
“The prisoners are safe!” someone had hollered when I first rode into Elgin’s headquarters, supposing that my appearance heralded the return of the others. They weren’t, and it didn’t although hopes ran high when Loch and Parkes turned up a day later; they’d been released fifteen minutes before their vermilion death warrant arrived at the Board of Punishments. Whether Yehonala or the mandarin who had special charge of them, Hang-ki, had held it back, or whether they were just plain lucky, we never discovered. They’d had a bad time: Parkes had escaped with binding and hammering, but Loch had been dungeoned and shackled and put to the iron collar, and from what he’d seen he suspected that some of the others had been tortured to death. Whether Elgin had any earlier suspicion of this I can’t say; I think he may have, from the way he questioned me about my treatment. In any event, his one thought now was to get them out.
Flashman Papers Omnibus Page 365
